Firing Line

- In the fight for freedom, the power of politics, art, and sports, this week on "Firing Line."

(activists shouting in foreign language) - [Hoover] In 2020, hundreds of thousands went into the streets in the former Soviet republic of Belarus in defiance of dictator Alexander Lukashenko, a strong ally of Vladimir Putin.

That uprising inspired a basketball star named Katya Snytsina to speak up.

- It's like, come on, now.

You need to say something.

You know, you can't just be silent.

Because it's people who will support me during all my basketball career.

You know, like it's them on the streets dying.

- [Hoover] Snytsina led the Belarusian team to the 2008 Olympics.

Her political awakening was turned into a play, in which she plays herself.

We taped this interview on stage immediately after a performance in New York in September.

She was joined by underground theater director Natalia Kaliada, who is exiled from Belarus.

- We as artists have that unique combination of morality and creativity that put dictators into panic mode.

- [Hoover] And by opposition leader and former presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, also in exile.

Her husband is among the hundreds of political prisoners in Belarus.

- I haven't heard from Sergei for more than 500 days.

- [Hoover] With Lukashenko now running to extend his 30-year dictatorship, what do these three exiled freedom fighters say now?

- [Announcer] "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, Cliff and Laurel Asness, and by the following.

Corporate funding is provided by Stephens Inc. - Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Katya Snytsina, Natalia Kaliada.

- I'm the easiest one.

(interviewees laugh) - Welcome to the three of you to "Firing Line."

Natalia, the Belarus Free Theatre has used art to stand up against Alexander Lukashenko's dictatorship for 20 years now.

We watched something just now here in this theater that was extraordinary, a play about Katya Snytsina, a former captain of the Belarus women's basketball team who is also the star of the play.

What were you hoping to accomplish with this performance?

- We do many different shows for almost 20 years.

And for 20 years we try to bring the value of one human life back to reality.

Recent years, especially after events of 2020 in Belarus, when thousands of people went to the streets against the usurper of the country who occupied his own country, put into jails thousands of people, kidnapped and killed main opponents to the regime, those people went to the streets to stand up against him.

And in 2022, when a full-scale invasion of Ukraine happened, it became clear that one life of a human, it lost its value.

The world start to develop fatigue from murders and tortures.

And at that moment, it became clear that it's necessary to bring back a value of one human life.

Meeting Katya, it became very clear that that's that one human life story, that's a story of a everyday superwoman who is able to stand up against the whole system.

She became so brave, made choice, and she said openly, "Stop the violence."

And that woman became that example that we wanted to share with the world.

- Katya, you are the everyday superwoman, star of this play, which is about your own experiences, your own life.

You helped lead the Belarusian women's basketball team in the 2008 Olympics.

What was the moment you decided you could no longer represent Belarus on the world stage?

- You know, when in 2020, everybody was on the streets, you know, and you see how many people go in the streets to say no to dictator, you know?

It's like, come on, now.

You need to say something.

You know, you can't just be silent.

Because it's the fans, it's people who will support me during all my basketball career.

You know, like it's them on the streets dying right now, you know.

This was my, like, let's say last drop.

- Sviatlana, you are a leader in exile of the Belarusian opposition.

Your husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky, was arrested after he announced he would run for president.

You ran in his place in an election that was dismissed internationally as a sham election.

And today, your husband remains in Belarus, in prison.

You are in exile, and the pro-democracy organization Freedom House ranks Belarus as even less free than Russia, which is saying something.

First, what do you know about your husband's condition?

- It was the most painful topic, not only for me, but for all Belarusians because I believe that there is no family, no person in Belarus, who doesn't have a relative, friend, beloved, or somebody in jail.

And we know, we Belarusians know how people are treated in those jails, those who are political prisoners.

People are tortured.

People are deprived of normal food, of fresh air, of medical aid.

People are literally dying in prisons.

Those people behind the bars, you know, they rely on us, they rely on the international community, you know, to release them.

And of course my husband is my personal pain.

You know, I'm going to bed with thoughts about him, wake up with thoughts about him.

But we have thousands of political prisoners.

- He's on your folder.

- Yeah, and we have to release all of them.

So Lukashenko, this regime, actually started to use new type of torturing people, keeping them in incommunicado mode.

There are several people from whom we haven't heard for more than a year.

And my husband is among these people.

I haven't heard from Sergei for more than 500 days.

You know, I'm looking in the eyes of my husband.

And, of course, you know, I feel this constant pain, but I always think about thousands of splintered families, thousands of children who are waiting for their mothers and fathers from jail.

And this is, I think, what gives us all energy to continue this fight.

- What is life like in Belarus today?

- I hope that you have heard about Stalin's time repressions.

This is what Belarus looks like at the moment.

It's the country where you are voiceless.

This is the country with constant repressions.

This is the country where you feel constant fear.

But despite living in gulag, I'm so proud of Belarusians that our nation is not giving up.

People woke up in 2020.

And for four years in a row, already, despite what Lukashenko is doing to the country, people every day overcoming their fear and do small acts of sabotage.

People continue to communicate.

People continue to read alternative news, knowing that they might be detained for this and sentenced to 5, 10, 15 years.

So this is our reality.

- What is the backstory, give us, about how the two of you met, and finally, you decided to become a subject of a theatrical performance.

How did this happen?

And how did you become an actor?

(interviewees and audience laughing) - Do we want a real story?

(laughs) - Do you want it from the very beginning?

Well, we get drunk.

(all laughing) - But was it vodka or beer?

- It was a margarita.

- Oh, okay.

My kind of girls.

(audience laughing) - Yeah, it was one summer.

I think it was summer 2022, and I was in Vilnius, and I never meet them before.

And one of my friends, he said, "Come.

Just join us."

We, like 11:00 pm, we're in the bar, like, "Join us.

They want to meet you."

So I joined them, I meet them, and we started to talk.

And then many years later, I end up rehearsing for 10 hours after my season, after my basketball career, you know.

And actually, I didn't know what I really doing, because they want me to learn 22 pages in English.

And at the beginning, I was like, is it kinda, you know, you need to be a little bit crazy to do this.

So they made me do it.

And basically, this is our story, yeah.

- Sviatlana, when it comes to fighting against corrupt governments, what can athletes and artists do that politicians can't?

- I think, cause emotions.

'Cause art, this is what cause real emotions.

'Cause it makes people not to feel fatigue.

It makes people not to forget, you know, what was going and what is, you know, going in Belarus.

And as for sportsmen, sportsmen are our, like, local stars, and people are listening to them.

People took example from them.

So yeah, it's very moving, you know, to see people who might have done career in Belarus, they overcame their fear.

They started to ask questions, "Who am I?

Why I can't agree with this regime anymore.

You know, I can't make consensus with my consciousness, you know, about what's going on."

And, yeah, it's example, you know, for other people.

- This program has a long history of defending human rights.

And when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn first fled the Soviet Union and came to the West in 1974, there was a program on this where the conversation was about the responsibility of artists to politics.

- There is no way that Solzhenitsyn could exist without the Soviet tyranny, at least I cannot imagine him having even become a writer without the experiences he had.

I think he himself is rather candid on the point.

Having had these experiences, he is compelled to testify about them, to get them on the record, to tell the rest of the Russian people, through the underground publication, what is going on, to inform the rest of the world.

- I wonder, Natalia, if you're hopeful that a similar wave of writing and art can undermine the dictatorship in Belarus.

- In 2005, when we announced the existence of Belarus Free Theater, we wrote two letters.

One letter was Tom Stoppard, a British playwright.

And another letter was to President Vclav Havel.

From Tom Stoppard we got a reply in five minutes saying, "You got my support to establish theater."

And he said like, "What else I could do for you?"

We write to him, "Can you come to Belarus?"

And he is like, in 15 minutes, "Yeah.

Let me finish my play and I will come."

And then we're like, "Hmm."

It was August of 2005 when Tom Stoppard arrived to Belarus.

And at that moment we introduced him to wives of our friends whose husbands had been kidnapped and killed.

And when he was on the way to the airport I spoke to him and I said, "Tom, what is the issue with dictatorship?

Why dictator is killing people?"

And he said, "You need to understand that dictatorship is not political thing.

It's a moral thing."

And that was a moment when suddenly it became clear that we as artists have that unique combination of morality and creativity that put dictators into panic mode.

And that was that particular moment when we thought we must push that button and put them into that panic mode nonstop.

- Katya, I want to ask you about the circumstances in Belarus for LGBTQ people.

You came out as gay last year, and since then the Belarusian government has announced incredibly harsh crackdowns on the LGBT community.

They have issued a law equating homosexuality to pedophilia.

What is your message?

Do you have a message for Belarusian youth who are LGBT who are suffering under the dictatorship?

- For me, this way was more for actually all people in Belarus who's under this pressure of, like, regime telling you, "LGBTQ people are crazy, are not normal" or something else, something else.

And I just want to show them, because I never talk about it out loud, and I just want to show them, I'm just one of you guys.

You know, I'm the same.

I'm just a person who just choose to love other person.

And I don't ask your permission.

I don't ask your opinion about it.

I just want to tell you, you know?

And for me, it was like statement to everybody who will watch it and who have any doubts about, is it lesbians or gays are normal people.

So, sorry, yes, we are.

We just choose to love the person we want, you know, not what society telling you.

And actually, when I did it, okay, I was expecting some bad messages, like comments.

Zero.

- Fascinating - Zero.

I was like, "Is that mean, like, people was ready for accept like that?"

Like, this is my freedom and they accept my freedom.

That was so important for me.

- Sviatlana.

Lukashenko's running again.

The last presidential election, which was widely viewed by the international community as having been a sham, fraudulent, improperly held.

Does the next election present a new opportunity for your opposition and for the opposition to mobilize?

- No, I don't want to answer this question too politically, but I want to explain people who live in democratic country, what you call election, presidential elections, has nothing in common with ritual, with this farce and imitation in Belarus.

It will be like Lukashenko is reelecting Lukashenko.

So this is what we will have.

And of course, keeping in mind four and a half, like it will be four and a half years of repressions in Belarus.

I don't think that Belarusian people will be on the streets, and I don't want Belarusians to sacrifice themselves just for nothing.

For sure, it will not be that moment that can change anything in Belarus.

We as Belarusian people, as a nation, we have to prepare and to be prepared for a real trigger, for a real moment of opportunity, and only then to rise up again.

- The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on Belarus.

President Biden met with you.

What more can the U.S. do to support democracy movements in authoritarian regimes?

In particular, what would bolster the democracy movement in Belarus?

- You know, I would divide here on government of the country and people, nation, because I want people of free United States of America to understand that not all the countries and nations enjoy democracy.

And people are paying high price for getting all the freedoms you have in your country.

And when nation asking you to support those who are in need, who are in pain, don't say that, "It's your fight.

It's not ours.

We like, feel wonderful in our country."

I think that every free person has to feel moral responsibility to help those who are in need.

As for government, of course we need Belarusian topic to be kept high on agenda.

You want such powerful country as the USA to remember about Belarus, and to use its power to punish dictators, to help those people who are fighting against those dictators.

So as for punishments, it's about sanctions, it's about accountability, it's about political isolation, it's about showing to dictators that for ruining the lives of your people, you will pay high price.

Of course, I can't not say here about Ukraine because we are countries who are fighting the same imperialistic ambitions of Russia.

Russia doesn't see Ukraine or Belarus as separate states.

They want to drag our countries back in Soviet Union times, not giving us, people, opportunity to choose our future ourselves.

So I'm asking U.S. government to help Ukraine as much as they can, to give Ukrainians everything possible for them to win this war.

Because victory of Ukraine will mean a window of opportunity for us Belarusians.

- There is a contingent in the Republican Party in the United States that actually thinks and advocates for a expeditious termination to the conflict in Ukraine, that this should end immediately.

I mean, what would be the impact of the United States withdrawing support from Ukraine?

- What's going on in Ukraine, it's not fight of Ukrainians for their land.

It's a fight against dictatorship.

And the USA, as democratic country, you know, should show its teeth to dictatorship.

Because if you stop supporting those who are fighting for the same values your country is based on and cherishing also dearly, dictators will perceive it as weakness.

We already see how dictators are making coalitions.

They're threatening not Ukraine, they're threatening global democracy.

And this is the obligation of powerful democratic countries, you know, to oppose these coalitions, to show that democracy has teeth.

We have tools, you know, to fight with you and defeat you.

So in the case, I don't want to believe in this, Ukraine will lose this war, it will be defeat of all democratic world.

It's not about Ukraine anymore, you know.

It's about democracy.

Because if your neighbor's house is on fire, it's so, you know, cool, you know, to be in your cozy house, you know.

But the fire, if it's not stopped, it will be on your house.

So what are you going to do then?

So if you have power to help those who are fighting, do this.

- I have heard you say, and final question for the three of you, and I'd like each of you to answer it, that actually you have still hope that Belarus will be free, and what you need from the U.S. is for support in that vision.

I'd like to know from each of you, what gives you hope that Belarus will be free?

- I'm an athlete, you know.

I never give up.

I go on that court, and no matter who's in front of me, I still play my 40 minutes, and I'm still giving my best.

And the same for this situation.

I always see hope.

I always know tomorrow, I, again, will do something.

- Natalia.

- I don't live with the hope.

I started to live in reality, and that reality is very harsh.

In 1999, four friends of ours, very close friends, they've been kidnapped and killed.

And those who did that, they are still in power.

It's done by official death squad in Belarus.

And it was established by Lukashenko.

So... - So what gives you hope, was the question.

- Hope is great, but we need to be realistic in order to act properly and be proactive, in order not to allow dictators to do what they do.

Then the hope will become our reality.

We do still dream that all of us will be able to come home and be able to show to our children and where their grandparents are buried and that land to be given back to people and not to those who occupied that land.

That's the hope.

- Sviatlana.

- You know, I truly believe that you can't defeat dictators with hope only.

Our fight is about constant everyday work.

And I want to believe.

I really believe in Belarusian people, in Belarusian nation.

I want to believe that this time is different, that this time we'll manage to keep our unity.

We'll manage to stood against this dictatorship till our victory.

- Natalia, Katya, Sviatlana, thank you for joining me on "Firing Line" and for elevating the circumstances politically in Belarus.

Thank you for being my guests.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for having us.

- [Announcer] "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, Cliff and Laurel Asness, and by the following.

Corporate funding is provided by Stephens Inc. (energetic dramatic music) (energetic dramatic music continues) (dramatic music fades) (bright upbeat music) (gentle instrumental music) - [Announcer] You're watching PBS.